Philosophy Wire: Crazy asteroids. Staring at the abyss.

A craze asteroid going in the “wrong” direction. [1] Weird? Unique? Result of a set of coincidences or something more “special” astronomers wonder? But what is “special” anyway? What is “unique”? Everything is unique! Everything is the same! Special pieces of a puzzle seen only by those special enough to watch out for special pieces. But even more unique is the ability of some not to look at the pieces but at the puzzle itself. The asteroid is not special. Take a step back. You look at the asteroid. But the asteroid stares back. “Why do you stare at me?” he asks. And your inability to utter an answer frightens you…

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Philosophy Wire: Science's inherent limitations, fish, stars.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-04-11]:

There are 10 times more fish in the sea than we thought. [1]
Despite what we though before about the universe being almost void of planets, scientists now think that almost every star in the universe has a planet. [2]
Everything is true in science. Just give it a little time...
Continuously changing data, lead to continuously changing results.
Continuously changing tools with which data are interpreted, leas to... whenever you want!
Unless you really believe "10 times more" or "planets are everywhere" were just two minor glitches that will never happen again. At least with the currently available data...
From the "we cannot fly", to the speed of sound barrier to life on Mars, our course is a constant "cannot be done"... A constant "this does not exist"... Until the next falsification...

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Philosophy Wire: What IS a particle? A surprisingly difficult (and immaterial) question…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2012-12-27]: In modern physics a particle is an elementary piece of mass. But scientists do not know what mass is and only now they are starting to formulate theories about its true nature (see the Higgs boson for example). So again: a particle is an elementary… something which we do not know what it is exactly. And this… thing is the basis for our physics theories today. Materialists believe that everything is matter. But what is matter? The sum of various particles so vigorously studied by CERN? But again, the definition is not perfect. What is a particle for example? Energy? Wave? A wavefunction collapsing with conscious observation?

As Planck has said...

"As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter." [Max Planck, Das Wesen der Materie (The Nature of Matter), speech at Florence, Italy (1944) (from Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Abt. Va, Rep. 11 Planck, Nr. 1797)]

Matter in today's science is more immaterial than the most pure spirit...

Scary, isn’t it? Or extremely liberating?

After all it was Bohr who said "Isolated material particles are abstractions, their properties being definable and observable only through their interaction with other systems.[...] We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry"...

And it was Werner Heisenberg who said "I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language"...

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Philosophy Wire: I "see" chemical bonds <> I interpret an image

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2012-09-18]: A pioneering team from IBM in Zurich has published single-molecule images so detailed that the type of atomic bonds between their atoms can be discerned. [source: BBC News] Before being ecstatic about such announcements, one should always be a little careful. What is that we actually "see" ? Surely the image I post above, but what "IS" that image? The only way to securely describe what we see is to claim that "we see what we see". Nothing more. There are no "bonds" in there, no "molecules". We have created those notions with our modern chemistry and we will "destroy" them as soon as a new chemistry (possibly one not including molecules and bonds at all, but only chords) will arise. Interpreting is not "seeing"...

 

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Zeus exists, so do atoms...

How can the Gods of Olympus actually exist in the way atoms and electromagnetic fields do?
See here for more...

Philosophy Wire: Black holes and the (non?) need for evidence…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2011-12-15]: Researchers have spotted a giant gas cloud spiralling into the supermassive black hole at our galaxy's centre. Though it is known that black holes draw in nearby material, it will be the first chance to see one consume such a cloud. As it is torn apart, the turbulent area around the black hole will become unusually bright, giving astronomers a chance to learn more about it. An article in Nature suggests the spectacle should be visible in 2013 [source: BBC News]. Black holes could be the portal to other dimensions. Or they could just be global destructors. If seeing is believing then we shouldn’t believe in “black” holes. If on the other hand logical scientific models can reveal the truth before we observe it, then why wait to see?

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Philosophy Wire: Neutrinos faster than light => New physics required

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2011-11-18]: Neutrinos at CERN are still “insisting” on travelling faster than light, in the infamous OPERA experiment which was repeated once more [source: web news]. On the drawing board again then. All modern physics is based on the axiom that the speed of light is the ultimate barrier. Now everything has to change. And all those “scientist-lovers” who were celebrating the agreement of experimental data with the Theory of Relativity are reminded (the hard way) that modern exact science is nothing more than models. And models change all the time… (that is, if time exists since travelling faster than light means that you go back in time and if you go back in the past that means that the past has not passed… but that is another story for “future” posts)

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Philosophy Wire: Faster than light, more stupid than Borat…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2011-09-23]: Scientists look baffled after discovering particles that seem to have travelled with a speed greater than the speed of light [source: BBC News] !!! If this is confirmed, all physics will have to be re-written from scratch! This happens when you build whole skyscrapers (physics modern models for the cosmos) on not-so-solid foundations (one experiment showing that the speed of light is constant regardless of the reference system)…

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Flat Earth and the Subjectivity of Scientific Models

Science produces models for the interpretation of the world. And we must always remember that these models have nothing to do with the "Reality" philosophers refer to. In the old days people thought Earth was flat. Today we laugh at this theory, since we "know" that the Earth is a sphere. But should we laugh?

If in some years we "see" Earth though a different perspective (e.g. via a satellite which looks at a specific wave length), we may know that Earth has a different shape. Recent photos from a satellite which analyzes Earth's gravity field, showed that the Earth's shape is not at all spherical (see photo above). If we lived 5,000 years ago and we saw everything "on the same level", then the correct SCIENTIFIC interpretation SHOULD then be that the world is flat. And noone would laugh at it...

And let's not forget that even today we navigate ourselves with 2-dimensional maps...
And let's note that recent scientific data show that the space in the universe is generally FLAT! [source]

Truth is something too big to be analyzed with the help of scientific models...

Philosophy Wire: Pandora, galaxies & “visible” Dark Matter… A day to remember!

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2011-06-23]: Scientists took a picture of the Pandora cluster, where the collision of the galaxies gives a good opportunity to chart the Dark Matter better than ever before [source: BBC News]. In a picture that was published (and which I publish also here), Dark Matter is artificially colored blue. It was that simple after all: all it takes is a little…Photoshop and the mysterious Dark Matter appears… In a few years we will have all forgotten that the blue color is artificial and we will see also… Blind men are guiding blind men…

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Philosophy Wire: Japan, the (unknown) pre-earthquake, the main earthquake and the importance of models interpretation

With people not yet recovered by the terrible earthquake of 8.8 Richter scale in Japan, we learn today that two days ago the same area was struck by a Richter 7.2 earthquake [source: 1]. The quake was considered as a major earthquake then and did not pose any worries. Until the great earthquake came... and the "main" quake was characterized as a "pre-earthquake" by scientists... We are looking for fixed points of reference, but a new larger quake is enough to change everything overnight. The interpretation of what we see is so ambiguous, subjective, fluid and changeable, which makes us wonder: is anything certain in our "objective" science?

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